Published in the Rep-Am on 6/24/23
MIDDLEBURY FIRST SELECTMAN GOES TO ANOTHER TOWN TO FIND SUPPORT
How interesting that Middlebury First Selectman Edward B. St. John has to go to Beacon Falls, where First Selectman Gerard Smith claims the state is interfering with local business “as usual,” to find support for his outrage against Rep. Bill Pizzuto, R-Middlebury.
Let’s look at the property we assume Mr. Smith identified as suffering from the “ripple effect” that would limit economic development in his town. The Republican-American identified it as “a 30-acre parcel on Lopus Road in an industrial zone.” Using the area tool on the Beacon Falls GIS website (with wetlands soil overlay) shows the property in question to have just about 2.5 acres of wetlands on the 30.9acre parcel. If this is an accurate depiction of the wetlands on the property, there is no ripple effect in Beacon Falls because the new provision applies only to properties with five or more acres of wetlands (that are also less than 150 acres total and within two miles of an elementary school).
If a wetlands mapping study has been properly done, and if the property does have more than five acres of wetlands, well, then perhaps Beacon Falls parents don’t want a 300,000-square-foot warehouse right next door to fields where kids play. The parcel directly borders the Beacon Falls Recreation Complex at 100 Pent Road.
Middlebury sure doesn’t want heavy industrial development this close to sensitive environmental receptors, and Middlebury residents thank the state for stepping in to protect our children’s health and our semi-rural, small-town way of life. The state stepped in because local officials refused to be accountable to the will of the people. That’s the beauty of democracy: the local authority given to towns for zoning and wetlands regulation comes from the state. What the state giveth, it can taketh away when this power is abused or ignored at the local level.
And, what the people giveth, that too can be taketh away at the next election.
Jennifer Mahr
Middlebury
The writer is president of the Middlebury Small Town Alliance
